Prêmio do Júri Vencedores

My name is Yassine Benjamaa, and I am a professional film maker, currently based in Morocco. I mostly work on corporate films and other uncool projects, but I always try to find some time to work on personal projects such as spec ads, short films and of course eYeka contests, which is way cooler and funky than directing corporate films! :D At first, I wasn't sure at all if I were going to participate in this contest. I liked the brief, I had a few ideas on how I would like to treat the subject, but I didn't have time to put too much thought into it until exactly one week before the contest closed. I had some spare time, a story started to come together from my initial ideas, so I simply started to write the shooting scripts, not knowing if I would have enough time to shoot. And it was a very close one! I finally decided to go for it, and gathered a small team with my fellow colleague Karim Souissi. We shot the whole clip in less than two days, had to cut some scenes out because we were running out of time, and we had to wrap up the whole post production in one day to meet the deadline… The clip was finally uploaded less than 15 minutes before the contest ended, so that's how close it really was! :D

When I first got the email that we won, I didn't really pay attention to it… It was early in the morning, and I thought it was just a newsletter announcing a new contest was up… :D But when I finally opened the email, I got so excited that I had to read it thoroughly several times just to make sure I wasn't tripping! :D Not only was I feeling enormous joy about winning, but, looking back on how the whole project started, how we were running out of time from the beginning and how we almost gave up at some point, I couldn't help but feel pride :) That was a real life lesson for me : even if things seem impossible, don't give up, something good will always come out of it! Even if you don't win, you will at least know you gave your best, and I think that's the most gratifying feeling ever! :)

Since this is not the first contest I won, if there's one advice I can give to my fellow eYeka creators, is that never enter a contest just for the prize money. :) It surely is a big motivation, but it should not be the reason why you choose one contest over another. If you're not inspired by the brief, than it doesn't matter how good the prize is, you won't be as creative as you can be because you're doing it for the wrong reasons. And don't block yourself because you don't have the equipment, or proper shooting crew. This is on the contrary a great training for aspiring film makers, because it will force you to find solutions and ways to make things happen! And I truly believe that the best filmmaking school is the Guerilla DIY filmmaking school!

My name is Guillaume Monette, I'm a professional musician and video editor. I'm trying to slowly move to the director's chair so that's why I'm testing my skills around the web. I'm new to eYeka but before that, I was submitting to Poptent. I think web contests are great because they give full freedom of creativity, then you can really see if the ideas in your head make sense.

I shoot with 60D, edit with final cut and create music with Cubase. In the next couple of days my girlfriend will give birth to our first child so I won't be around much. Anyhow, we need to use this community thing for good. If anybody here needs a track for his submission, feel free to write to me and explain your concept, we'll see if I got something that fits in my drawer. Thanks and congrats to all the submissions. Remember to put your other works in other places than contests too, like shorts movies festival, web giveaway, make your work seen. Contribute to the arts in general.

I'm a bit of everything, editor, visual fix, cinematographer, director… I am a professional of the audiovisual sector. The reason why I chose to join this contest is that I think this is a good opportunity to improve my creativity. I felt really happy about the winning, I feel that my creativity has been recompensed and I also think that everybody like to win an prize. In this case, it is good for us to invest in audiovisual equipment.

A funny story I would like to share with you about our shooting is that the principal actor in the video finally could dress in the small baby t-shirt, but later we had to cut it, as he couldn't breathe :D

Lastly, I animate everybody to participate in the contest, don´t be afraid to express your creativity because this contest lets you develop your imagination freely and unlimitedly. People have to value more that everybody can see their work than the prize, although this one always makes you happy.